Drabble 1

He closed his eyes, taking a measured breath, and reaching over to pry the jaws of what he could only guess to be a bear trap out of his arm. The teeth had buried themselves in his arm, the sleeve of his jacket was dyed a thick, smearing purple around the punctures, and each individual wound stung ferociously. Still, he was determined to not allow them to shred into his concentration, something he would need all of to free himself. Marshaling his strength fully was his single chance, and he had to be ready to stem what he was sure would be an unsafe rush of blood, seeking freedom from his body with more ease than he could escape from this trap. However, it was not the expected distraction of his own pain that drew his attention away from where he needed it.

A shriek from a shadowy and unmistakably Keronian form that had materialized before him was extending its hands desperately, trapped by something he couldn't see. It had no wounds that he could see, in fact, Saburo himself was the only apparent source of trouble for it. Nothing happened when he tried to speak, he hadn't done it before and it was a terrible thing to find out only at this point. He shook, as if the blood that remained in his body rushing through him faster than before, driven by his heart's newly frantic pounding, was quivering the limbs it moved through. He didn't have a good sense of time, outside of the fact that he had to approach the unknown Keronian quickly to perhaps find out what was wrong. To this end, he hurled himself for, repeatedly shredding his arm and jacket in a mix of fabric and skin, until it was hard to tell which material came from which surface, and finally, he burst free at the loss of chunks of gore from his arm. He sighed, relieved nonetheless, because he might now free himself and the Keronian of whatever its concern was.

Stepping out, he dropped away into a pit that had been invisible before, another trap for him of an unknown source, and another scream haunted his fall.